Mother Earth Father Sky (The Ivory Carver Trilogy Book 1) by Sue Harrison

Author:Sue Harrison
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780380715923
Publisher: Avon
Published: 1991-09-01T07:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-SIX

THE BABY WAS UNDER CHAGAK’S suk, bound to her chest with a leather sling. Chagak’s breasts had grown heavier and fuller each day during her pregnancy but seemed to lose some of their tenderness as the baby suckled.

He was a strong, fat baby, his head covered with dark hair. He does not look like his father, Chagak told herself. Had she not heard the sea otter whisper that he looked like her brother Pup or even her own father? Maybe he carried their spirits or the spirit of one of the men of her village.

But perhaps he carried the spirit of Man-who-kills. Who could say?

Even if he did not, it was the duty of a son to avenge his father. To kill those who had killed the father. How would a man feel if he had to kill his mother to honor his father?

Chagak tried to make her fingers work on the basket she was weaving, a fine, tightly woven basket with split willow for the warp and rye grass for the weft, but she could not keep her thoughts from her son. Shuganan sat near an oil lamp on the other side of the ulaq, smoothing an ivory carving with sandstone.

He had not said much to Chagak in the three days since the birth, though once Chagak had asked him if he thought she should take the child back to Aka, to let his spirit go to her village’s mountain. He had given her no true answer, only saying that she must decide herself. It was her child, not his.

Chagak looked at the old man. He had never truly recovered from Man-who-kills’ beatings. Although Shuganan never complained of the pain, he held himself carefully, favoring his left side, and his limp was more pronounced. But it seemed that, in exchange for one thing, the spirits had given another. Shuganan’s carvings were better, more intricate, so detailed that Chagak could make out the individual feathers of a soapstone suk, the thin ivory hairs on an old man’s head.

“Shuganan,” Chagak said, trying to speak softly, but in the quiet of the ulaq her words sounded loud, and even the baby jumped when she spoke.

Shuganan looked up at her and paused in his work, but Chagak could think of nothing to say. How could she tell the old man that she just wanted him to talk, wanted words in the ulaq to pull her from her thoughts?

Finally she said, “Do you think, if the child lives, he will have to kill us to avenge his father’s death?”

Shuganan’s eyes rounded, and for a long time he studied Chagak’s face. “No one can know what the spirits will tell a man to do,” he said, his words coming slowly, as if as he spoke he were thinking of other things. “But do not forget, a man who avenges father must also avenge grandfather. Who killed your family?”

“If he kills you for his father’s spirit, who will he kill for his grandfather’s spirit? Perhaps the only one he should kill would be me.

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